G5 losing all Firewire ports??

Just turned on my Mac G5 Dual 2.3Ghz which has been running perfect before and i think my firewire ports on the machine have been disabled??
I have an External FW800 Hard drive with sample libraries, and the FW400 MOTU 828mk2 soundcard.
For some reason both arent being recognised?? My drive automatically pops up on my desktop when i boot up buttoday it isnt there!?! And opening logic 7 it says
"MOTU not found - Apples Own built-in Audio will be used for this session instead"
I have a 2nd external FW400 drive that was unplugged when powereing up the Mac, and i plugged that in and that isnt seen either?!!! (it always pops up no problems)
BUT....
All my USB's seem to be fine? i have a Digidesign Mbox and M-audio USB keyboard, that still works and obviously my Logic USB Dongle to open Logic seems fine..
I have had this a couple of times within the last 2 weeks, and everytime a reboot (unplugging from the wall) and restarting has cured this..
Whats going on? and is there a cure???

yes this happens to me if i try to do anything firewire related i.e. burn a cd from an external FW drive if i use Itunes (songs are on a external FW drive) and sometimes it just dropes. I bought a 2nd pci express card 2 weeks ago and it blew out the firewire ports. Apple replaced the logic board and now i am a little hesitent to put another PCI express card in my computer, so for the time being i am turning my Onyx 1640 on and off when it drops out and sometimes only a restart will work. good times
dual core 2.3 Mac OS X (10.4.6) 6 gigs ram etc etc
dual 1.25 g4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Similar Messages

FW800 Card causes G4 all firewire ports to go dead

I tried to install an Allegro Firewire 800 card from Sonnet into my G4 1GHz Dual Processor G4. I put the card in, connected my firewire drive and got the following outcome.
1. When I re-booted, the computer hung at the blue screen that comes right after the gray screen. It stayed there for a very long time 5+ minutes but finally got through it.
2.When I logged on I found that the firewire ports on the Sonnet card AND also the native FW 400 ports no longer worked.
3.I removed the card, rebooted, and the machine still hung at the blue screen for a long time. It finally got through it, but the FW ports were still dead.
4. I worked for almost two hours, rebooting, trying to reset the PRAM, although I just got a black screen and no "restart" as is the usual case.
5. Finally, I unpluggd the machine completely and re-booted one last time and magically, the native FW ports started to work. So now I am back where I started.
Any ideas what is going on here? Should I try to install the card again? I am thinking that it was a mistake to hook the drive up before the machine had a chance to recognize the card, so I am tempted to try again that way, but I am afraid of getting the same results. Or should I just throw the card in the trash basket, call it a $50 loss or be content with FW 400?

Hi-
Finally, I unpluggd the machine completely and re-booted one last time and magically, the native FW ports started to work.
Doing so reset the PMU, and also reset the FW bus. Good job on stumbling onto the fix.
Any ideas what is going on here?
Bad card, maybe......
Should I try to install the card again?
Scary thought, huh.......
I am thinking that it was a mistake to hook the drive up before the machine had a chance to recognize the card, so I am tempted to try again that way, but I am afraid of getting the same results.
So, this means that you installed the card, connected a FW800 device, and then started the machine?
It would definitely be best to install the card, startup, and check the System Profiler, prior to connecting devices.
You don't need to shut down to connect a FW device. Hot plugging is fine, as long as you "eject" the device before unplugging it.

Full Firewire Port Failure (three different machines : iMac Intel, iMac G5, Black Macbook)

I'm experiencing a failure of all FireWire ports on all of my three machines. I believe this problem began with a faulty external, FireWire powered hard drive from G-Tech. Here are all my specs, followed by a rundown of the order of events that has lead to this situation, followed by the various troubleshooting I have done.
Equipment :
iMac Aluminum Intel - 24" Mid 2007 - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 1 FW400 and 1 FW800 ports disabled
iMac G5 - 20" - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 2 FW400 ports disabled
MacBook - 13" black Early 2008 - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 1 FW400 port disabled
2 500GB G-Drives (by G-Tech) - AC powered
1 5TB G-RAID Drive (by G-Tech) - AC powered
1 250GB G-Drive Mini (by G-Tech) - FW powered
Initial Setup :
1 500GB G-Drive connected directly to iMac Intel via FW800
1 500GB G-Drive connected to first 500GB G-Drive via FW800 (daisy chained)
1 250GB G-Drive connected to second 500GB G-Drive via FW400 (daisy chained)
1 5TB G-RAID connected directly to iMac Intel via FW800>400 adapter
Sequence of Events :
I had transferred some files to my G-Drive Mini in order to move them to my MacBook from my iMac Intel. I copied the files to the G-Drive Mini and ejected it normally and plugged it into my MacBook via FW400. The drive would not mount, and the power indication light would not go on. After experimenting with various connections and cables I was able to get the drive to power with FW400 and USB connected at the same time, but the drive would still not mount.
I then plugged the G-Drive Mini back into the 2nd 500GB G-Drive as it was previously connected via FW400. This action caused the G-Drive to immediately reboot and eject itself from my iMac Intel.
I then attempted to plug the G-Drive Mini into my older iMac G5 via FW400. Immediately upon plugging in, the computer shut down, and would not restart.
At this point I kind of started to freak out. I was unaware of the extent of the damage, but was upset that the FW powered G-Drive Mini had shutdown my iMac G5. I contacted G-Tech Support and they offered to replace the drive and instructed me how to manually reset the computer's SMC by opening up the iMac and finding the Cuda switch. This worked and the computer was able to start and function again, but the FW400 port seemed to be disabled.
I then tried to swap out configurations and drives on my iMac Intel to see if there was any cable problems, but doing so, slowly rendered all my FireWire ports useless. It's almost as if the act of plugging in the FW-powered G-Drive Mini started a kind of shortout chain reaction. I soon learned that none of my hard drives would connect to any of my three machines, with any kind of cable combination via FW400 or 800.
I am currently able to connect my 5TB G-RAID drive to any machine via USB, as well as my G-Drive Mini. I am unable to access the other two external hard drives, as one has only FW400 and 800 ports and the other's USB connection is not functional as well on any machine.
Troubleshooting Steps Taken :
I have on all machines, reset the SMC in the following methods. iMac G5 - manually, by opening the case and pressing Cuda switch. iMac Intel - unplug, hold power button, restart method. MacBook - unplug, hold power button, restart method.
I have also on all machines, reset the PRAM by the Cmnd + Opt + P + R method at startup.
I have also unplugged all cables / removed battery, from all machines and left alone for a period of at least 12 hours, then re-plugged in each device one at a time.
I have also restored my hibernate mode (through Terminal) on my iMac Intel to mode 3 and also turned on Virtual Memory in system preferences and set hibernatemode to mode 7, the restarted and attempted to plug in devices. The reason I even began to deal with the hibernate mode was because I had around the same time my ports began malfunctioning, installed the DeepSleep widget, which allows you to control your computer's hibernate mode. I thought that tweaking with this setting may have made my computer incapable of recognizing devices that were plugged in. I have since uninstalled the widget and experimented with different hibernatemodes to no avail.
I also have Repaired Disk Permissions and Repaired Disk on all my machines, from within my Admin User as well as from the OsX Install Disk.
Sometimes in my System Profiler (like right now for example on my iMac Intel) my computer is "Unable to list FireWire devices," but sometimes, no warning message comes up and it simply displays the appropriate Bus speed.
I also conducted a system restore using a backup from my 5TB G-Raid Drive via USB, to a date before these problems started, but my ports are still not working.
Summary :
I am looking at a situation where all my FW ports on all my computers appear to be disabled, and possibly also on my four external hard drives, with one possible USB port malfunction on one external drive. The only root of this seems to be a malfunctioning FW-powered external hard drive.
Is this possible? Has this happened to anyone else before? G-Tech assures me that it is impossible for my 250GB G-Drive Mini to draw enough power from a computer to permanently disable any ports, but I have tried all of the FW port problem troubleshooting steps and am at a loss.
I do not have AppleCare and would like to avoid bringing two iMacs, a MacBook and four hard drives to the Apple store and take my chances with the geniuses.
I would appreciate any help or advice you all have. Thanks for reading and for your support!

Ok. So if that was too confusing, I've re-labeled this post with letters for my hard drives and some mapping of the connectivity configurations I have attempted.
Equipment :
iMac Aluminum Intel - 24" Mid 2007 - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 1 FW400 and 1 FW800 ports disabled
iMac G5 - 20" - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 2 FW400 ports disabled
MacBook - 13" black Early 2008 - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 1 FW400 port disabled
1 500GB G-Drive (by G-Tech) w/ no USB port - AC powered : A
1 500GB G-Drive (by G-Tech) w/ USB port - AC powered : B
1 5TB G-RAID Drive (by G-Tech) - AC powered : C
1 250GB G-Drive Mini (by G-Tech) - FW powered : D
Initial Setup :
C > FW400-800 adapter > iMac Intel
D > FW400 > A > FW800 > B > FW800 > iMac Intel
Sequence of Events :
D > FW400 > MacBook
I had transferred some files to my G-Drive Mini D in order to move them to my MacBook from my iMac Intel. I copied the files to the G-Drive Mini D and ejected it normally and plugged it into my MacBook via FW400. The drive would not mount, and the power indication light would not go on. After experimenting with various connections and cables I was able to get the drive to power with FW400 and USB connected at the same time, but the drive would still not mount.
D > FW400 > A > FW800 > B > FW800 > iMac Intel
I then plugged the G-Drive Mini D back into the 2nd 500GB G-Drive A as it was previously connected via FW400. This action caused the G-Drive to immediately reboot and eject itself from my iMac Intel.
D > FW400 > iMac G5
I then attempted to plug the G-Drive Mini into my older iMac G5 via FW400. Immediately upon plugging in, the computer shut down, and would not restart.
At this point I kind of started to freak out. I was unaware of the extent of the damage, but was upset that the FW powered G-Drive Mini D had shutdown my iMac G5. I contacted G-Tech Support and they offered to replace the drive and instructed me how to manually reset the computer's SMC by opening up the iMac and finding the Cuda switch. This worked and the computer was able to start and function again, but the FW400 port seemed to be disabled.
I then tried to swap out configurations and drives on my iMac Intel to see if there was any cable problems, but doing so, slowly rendered all my FireWire ports useless. It's almost as if the act of plugging in the FW-powered G-Drive Mini D started a kind of shortout chain reaction. I soon learned that none of my hard drives would connect to any of my three machines, with any kind of cable combination via FW400 or 800.
D > USB > AnyMachine
C > USB > AnyMachine
I am currently able to connect my 5TB G-RAID C drive to any machine via USB, as well as my G-Drive Mini D. I am unable to access the other two external hard drives, as one has only FW400 and 800 ports (A) and the other's USB connection is not functional as well on any machine (B).
Troubleshooting Steps Taken :
I have on all machines, reset the SMC in the following methods. iMac G5 - manually, by opening the case and pressing Cuda switch. iMac Intel - unplug, hold power button, restart method. MacBook - unplug, hold power button, restart method.
I have also on all machines, reset the PRAM by the Cmnd + Opt + P + R method at startup.
I have also unplugged all cables / removed battery, from all machines and left alone for a period of at least 12 hours, then re-plugged in each device one at a time.
I have also restored my hibernate mode (through Terminal) on my iMac Intel to mode 3 and also turned on Virtual Memory in system preferences and set hibernatemode to mode 7, the restarted and attempted to plug in devices. The reason I even began to deal with the hibernate mode was because I had around the same time my ports began malfunctioning, installed the DeepSleep widget, which allows you to control your computer's hibernate mode. I thought that tweaking with this setting may have made my computer incapable of recognizing devices that were plugged in. I have since uninstalled the widget and experimented with different hibernatemodes to no avail.
I also have Repaired Disk Permissions and Repaired Disk on all my machines, from within my Admin User as well as from the OsX Install Disk.
Sometimes in my System Profiler (like right now for example on my iMac Intel) my computer is "Unable to list FireWire devices," but sometimes, no warning message comes up and it simply displays the appropriate Bus speed.
I also conducted a system restore using a backup from my 5TB G-Raid Drive C via USB, to a date before these problems started, but my ports are still not working.
Summary :
I am looking at a situation where all my FW ports on all my computers appear to be disabled, and possibly also on my four external hard drives (A, B, C, D), with one possible USB port malfunction on one external drive (B). The only root of this seems to be a malfunctioning FW-powered external hard drive.
Is this possible? Has this happened to anyone else before? G-Tech assures me that it is impossible for my 250GB G-Drive Mini D to draw enough power from a computer to permanently disable any ports, but I have tried all of the FW port problem troubleshooting steps and am at a loss.
I do not have AppleCare and would like to avoid bringing two iMacs, a MacBook and four hard drives to the Apple store and take my chances with the geniuses.
I would appreciate any help or advice you all have. Thanks for reading and for your support!

IRONY: 2 Apple Displays & 1 Firewire Port

I find oddly unsettling that my brand new setup (3.2 Mac Pro + 2x 23" Cinema's) has an obvious flaw. Two Displays means I have two USB / FW hubs built in, yet when I run the cables across my desk and down to the Mac Pro, I can plug in the 2 DVI and 2 USB cables, but one of the FireWire cables is left to dangle since there is only 1 FireWire 400 port on the back. To make matters worse, the cable isn't long enough stretch around front (not that I would want to).
Design flaw? Logistic over sight? Laziness? I sure won't return the thing, but wow this seems odd.

Well, actually there are two ways to look at it, none maybe from my angle. There is only ONE bus and you are just splitting (hairs) to daisy-chain devices. At least the 2008 is now linked to a new PCI Express bridge inside so FW800 is better, but all FireWire ports are running on one bus/channel.
Add a PCI Express card, and that may have multiple ports, but only one (extra) bus.
Then you have problems if you end up mixing drives and consumer electronics on the same bus. And, to make matters worse, there are some problems users experience with the built-in USB hub(s) in the ACD, keyboard, etc.
You don't say what you need to attach, whether a powered hub or 2nd controller would help, or whether best served with SATA drive controller.

Can i use ALL usb ports and firewire port at same time??

can you plug in two usb devices and a firewire device, all at the same time??
into macbook or macbook pro....
macbook manual says, one high powered usb device can be plugged in.
but i dont know if they mean into each port, or at one time in total.
i just spoke to apple, and they told me to call support. i havent even bought the laptop yet.
i want to plug in a fast track pro audio interface = usb
a mouse = mouse, akai mpd16 drum pad = usb, and a 7200rpm firewire external hard drive..........so all my ports i wanna be using at the same time.
is this possible? or will macbook and the macbook pro differ in performance regarding this issue?
say if i buy a usb hub and plug in 5 usb devices...........possible?
or is their limitations??
thanks in advance.

dwb wrote:
MacBook - since I was replying to a MacBook question it wouldn't have exactly made sense to refer to my iMac experience, right?
BTW - there are two caveats. First, USB and FW ports can supply power to the devices that are plugged in but there is a limit to how much power they can supply which is why you should always use a powered hub if you are using a hub. If you are using your computer on battery, don't attempt to use an unpowered hub to plug in more devices. Second, if you are on battery, obviously the more unpowered USB/FW devices you have plugged in getting their power from the computer, the faster your battery will be drained.
An unpowered hub shouldn't pull in more than 500 mA. If it's four 100 mA devices plugged into the same hub, it wouldn't use more than a single 500 mA device like maybe a self-powered hard drive. Plugging in stuff like a USB mouse and a flash drive shouldn't consume too much power.
If you're already on battery power then I don't know if it would make much sense to say that one needs a powered hub; where's the power source? I know there are a few (rare) battery-powered USB hubs out there, but I don't know that many people who have them.

PCIe G5s- are their firewire ports all on the same bus?

Sorry, posted this on the G5 expansion forum but never got a response. I've been looking but haven't found an answer to this. I know it was a major issue to some people that the old G5s had all their firewire ports on the same bus. I was just hoping that Apple had fixed this so I wouldn't need to use up an extra PCIe slot with a firewire card.
So, does anyone have an answer? Thanks ahead of time for any info!

Patrick:
Nope. My understanding of the FW spec is that devices slow down anything after themselves in the chain to their speed or lower. Thus, since the FW800 port isn't after the FW400 ones, the FW400 ones don't slow it down.
<
And in this corner, Brian:
<div class="jive-quote">Yes, and connecting a DV VCR or camcorder will pull everything down to 100Mbps. This is the reason some systems have dropped frame problems on capture and output to tape.< </div>
While these sound like complementary posts, the confusion is already palpating through this thread. Someone please clarify this for the rest of us. Suggest you use a standard example that includes a hi-speed FW drive, a standard FW drive and a DV deck. Hook them up in the same order to the two ports and tell us what the effects are on the performance of the Firewire bus.
At the present time, there are no PCIe firewire cards. < </div>
I had no idea.
Isn't that just weird? This is the 21st century! Why is there a new data bus structure in our Macintosh without any accessory cards?
bogiesan

How do i tranfer all my data across from my old macbook to the new macbook pro (It doesn't have Firewire port), How do i tranfer all my data across from my old macbook to the new macbook pro (It doesn't have Firewire port)

I have recently just bought a macbook pro and it doesn't have a firewire port. So how can i transfer all my music, photos, docs and videos across. Any help ???

My new-ish MBP has a Firewire port, but it's not the old-style one you might be familiar with. Look at the ports for the Firewire symbol (looks like a Y). You will need an adapter to connect an old-style Firewire cable to it. (Yeah, I know there are names for them and "old-style" isn't one of them, but they slip my mind at the moment.)
Alternately, since you should be backing up anyway, do a full backup from the old machine and then import from the backup on the new one. See my Mac Backup Guide* ASAP if you aren't currently backing up!
* Disclaimer: links to my pages may give me compensation, and should not be taken as endorsement of my services by Apple.

Firewire port failure/ tried all remedies

Hey Guys,
The problem I'm having is in regards to connecting a G-Drive Mini to my Firewire 800 port. My main question is can my firewire port be "fried" and still provide my drive with power? The drive will connect Via USB successfully.
The solutions/remedies I've tried are:
Reset Pram
Reset SMC
Reinstalled Combo Update for 10.6.8
Booted off install disk and opened disk utility to see if drive would mount
AHT Extended Test resulting in no problems found
Used an external power supply to power G-drive when plugged into Firewire 800 port. (1 amp power supply)
Drive was successfully mounted on a Mac pro using the same firewire cable.
Formated/added files onto drive using USB
Reset Firewire port by unplug power and shutdown for 15 minutes
Symptoms occuring are:
Drive is getting power from Firewire port.
Can connect via USB to the drive.
Will not mount of be recognized in disk utility or firewire section in system profiler (only information under firewire tab is the Max speed limitation of 800mb/s)
My Macbook Pro:
Macbook Pro 7,1 (Mid-2010)
Intel Core Duo 2
Running Snow Leopard 10.6.8
2.66ghz
8Gb-Ram
My External Hard-drive:
G-Technology
G-Drive Mini
1Tb
Any thoughts, suggestions, or questions are greatly.
P.s. I sadly don't have another firewire device to test on the port but this device is indeed working properly because I tested it on a Mac Pro with the same cable.
Is it possible for my port to be fried and AHT report no problems?
I'm considering updating mac to Mountain Lion or Mavericks to see if problem persists (Last Resort) Bootup off install disk should have disproved this theory?

Take it in to an Apple Genius, the diagnosis is almost always free, they have much more sophisticated testing. AHT may not tell you about issues that deep. (make an appointment for the genius bar)
http://www.apple.com/retail/storelist/
https://getsupport.apple.com/GetproductgroupList.action?caller=saso&category_id= SC0997&locale=en_US&SG=SG001

BSODs lock ups and flakey firewire port - help ??

Okay I'm really getting fustrated over this laptop it's nearly 2 weeks old
and I've already had 2 BSODs the odd crash where the mouse moves but nothing
else around it works so a forced reboot was needed.
Today I had a BSOD all i did was run some untility from the taskbar called
network doctor or something.
error message:
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (no address information supplied)
STOP: 0x00000000050
someone suggested that I may have a memory problem or my page file is corrupt.
anyway here's a run down on what i've installed so far with my laptop.
- Installed all XP security updates and patches
- Installed Firefox 1.0.1 (don't trust IE6.0 yet)
- Installed iriver download manager (my mp3 player)
- Installed winamp 2.0 and Creative Notebook Cam.
I've ran a forced boot chkdsk and no problems found.
Another thing I found interesting was nearly everytime my laptop bsods I usually
find a a yellow marker over my 1394 net adapter (firewire port) in device mananger
("cannot start device") don't know if that's related or not. A reboot seems to
clear this yellow marker but I am rather unhappy BSODs are no laughing matter.
My laptop model is the Equium A60-181 (Intel P4 HT 3.2Ghz 512Mb RAM)
Anyone else had similar problems or recommendations?
cheers,
Richard S.

Hi Richard
I understand you that you are unhappy with this all problems but there can be a lot of reasons for that. In my opinion this can happened because of some unnecessary update or some drivers installed by third-party software that you installed on your notebook.
Please reinstall OS using Recovery CD. After firs boot check in device manager if there is some hardware problem. If not you than try to start Config free (Connectivity doctor) and some other Toshiba tools to check if everything is ok.
If everything is ok try to install SP2 if you dont have it on your machine (just SP2 and not separately updates and patches). I am not sure but some of A60 are delivered with SP2.
Install all your programs slowly and follow carefully what happened after every step that you done.

Why would the Firewire Port and/or External DVD-RW suddenly not work?

Hi, it's me again. I swear, I must be destined to just use Windows machines...
Anyways, I have a used/refurbished iBook G3 500MHz 320MB RAM Dual USB (1 Firewire)laptop running OS 10.2.8 that I bought a few months ago. I went and purchased an external Firewire/USB 2.0 DVD-RW drive as I only had a CD-ROM drive on my machine and I wanted the option to burn CD's or watch/read data from DVD's (I know that with my slow processor writing DVD's -other than data- would be a stretch and have other machines to do that with anyways so it wasn't a concern really). I received it and installed it, also installed the free version of Toast that came with it, and the drive worked fine. I have not needed to use the drive since then and have not used the laptop much at all since then really, but I do need to say that I did end up adding a new user account, though I can't remember if I changed the original Admin account and then still have the one I created myself when I first started the laptop after I bought it (had a fresh install of Jaguar on it, but I have no disk to re-install with if needed) or if I created a separate (new) account and ended up deleting the Original Admin accout (I know in Windows, you cannot delete the original Admin account but I do not know if that is the same for OSX or not). I did this as I wanted a master Admin account that I just wouldn't really use and then wanted the other as my main account (and use it to connect to my home windows network) and for some reason it would not let me put a check in the box to allow that account to do so (from either Apple or my user accounts) and so I know that my main user account now is set up to allow it (was it the old Apple user account or a new one, I can't remember- sorry).
Ok, so that is the back story to my problem, which happens to be this:
I just bought a new chip of RAM (512MB to make it a machine with 576MB RAM total) and as I had been looking at getting OSX Tiger (but didn't want to do it without the extra ram and had been considering Panther instead as well), I thought it was necessary if I wanted to not bog down my machine. I bought the Install Disks on DVD for Panther, as well as an upgrade disk (DVD again) for Tiger, therefore letting me use the External Firewire DVD-RW to install Panther, and if I liked I could go ahead and upgrade to Tiger (and if I didn't like it too much, or it slowed things down too much etc, then I could always go back to panther and have both available for future options). The extra RAM coming in handy here definitely.
So I was going to install the RAM today, and decided to go ahead and test out the External DVD to make sure it could boot from it (before making any changes to my system) and then go and install the RAM, and after that, install Panther to start... But I plugged all the cords and cables in, used my laptop with AC power even, and I could not get the External to show up at all... (kinda like the very current post right below mine but for the G4- it worked before, but now the firewire External just does not show up).
I only have USB 1.1 on this laptop obviously, and I don't even know if you could do a boot from an external with USB 2.0 if my laptop had it (the DVD player does). I was recommended to boot with an external firewire DVD or firewire to another machine with DVD capabilities to do the install. So my problem right now is getting slightly bigger, as of course, I can't seem to momentarily find the stuff that came with the External (spare USB cable to check and see if the laptop will recognize it at least with that and to show it is the firewire that is not working properly, or the disk that I used to install it -might have been only used to install Toast free version if it didn't need any drivers, but I don't know where that or the instructions for installation sheet currently is -- I am looking for it, but I have switched bedrooms just last week and I also seem to be missing a few other Windows laptop disks as well so there is a good chance that they are all together, I just need to figure out where, heh.)
I am waiting currently before installing the memory, though if I don't get the External working tonight, I may go ahead and do it first as at least I will have more memory on my laptop then, until I can get other stuff functioning and be able to do the Panther install.
But my main question is, is there something that would cause an installed external to suddenly not show up in OSX? Since I hadn't used it since that one day, and it was unplugged from the laptop itself, would that end up doing it, or more likely, the changing of the user accounts (though I have been trying to test it with different types of media and through both of my user account (which are both "admin" ones), though I do still have one of those being an account that was on there when the External DVD was first installed, so it really shouldn't have done this at all (one would think). So how big of a chance is it that the firewire has somehow gone dead and this is the main culprit to my wasting the past 4 hours on this???
I am currently scavenging around for an extra USB cable to try and test the External that way and will post the results when I can... I love the look and idea of macs, now I have a mac and want to upgrade it even, but why is it that whenever I attempt to use it after having not used it for a bit (and try to make the iBook feel better by using it more as I am sure it feels sad and alone sitting on the shelf while my Windows Laptop gets more attention), or try to fix it when it can be made better (and therefore used more often), the mac (all macs really), just seem to get all pissy and cause problems and make me spend hours upon hours trying to get things to work again??? You have to admit it, I am "mac cursed"... sigh I can program in 4 or 5 computer languages and am very advanced at many tech things (the ones I am not as good at I am still usually Average or Medium skilled) so it makes me wonder why I have so many tech problems with Macs when they are supposed to be the "easy" OS to use...

Actually, I think I have it all working now. After going back to the Plextor Website, I found out that the switch between the USB and 1394 ports only gets activated (switched over to the other) with you turn the device off first, move the switch and then turn it back on. I was sure that I had done this with the ibook, but maybe not as when I went back and did it with first the USB and then the Firewire cables, it did work. I definitely knew that I had not done this with the Windows laptop, the reason it would not have the USB work for me on it.
but back to the iBook, I was confused as it was only showing up as a DVD-ROM (which I guess is what they do until you actually open up the burning software to then be able to burn to it), and it also had the wrong Model #, which after more research, showed that it was the Internal DVD drive model version (PX-708A) compared to the actual model version (PX-708UF) which is the USB/Firewire (External) model. The firmware was really out of date as well (from June 2004 I think, v1.06) and they had v1.12 from Spet/Oct 2006 available so I went to get that (which was a hassle). They had nice easy Windows self extractor/installer packs, and then the BIN files for use for all systems (Sun OS/ Mac OSX/ Mac OS/ Linux etc as well as usable for Windows), and those needed a special Firmware Updater Application which was OS specific. Only I had the hardest time trying to get the OSX one as it would send me to a FTP site and not give me any clues as to which file(s) I needed to get and the Mac OS version was just for older 9.2 or below versions and didn't want to install under the OS Classic mode.
I ended up using my windows computer which made it easier to view with the FTP stuff as I have FireFTP in Firefox, and downloaded the files I thought I needed (to test out), and then realized my silliness, and just downloaded (as well) the Windows Auto Extractor/Installer as the Firmware is the same for all OS's, just the way to install/update it was different... So I hooked the DVD drive to my PC and updated the firmware, checked it out on here before moving it back to the ibook, where I checked that it still worked and had the new update version showing, which it did, and now I have my fully working and newly updated drive ready for the OSX installations... I had attempted to update my Jaguar system as well while online, but it had no new updates available (I guess those were all mostly Tiger updates that were just recently released).
I am now off to install my additional RAM, and after checking that it all shows up correctly, I will go ahead and do the Panther Install (and test it out and see if I like it or not).
For anyone that currently uses Panther on any mac, are there still any major problems I should know about before hand, or know about things that they have mostly fixed (like the issues with Firewire ports and External Drives that they had around the time Panther was first released for example)???
Thanks to all that helped... I now know to attempt an "eject" of any external HD (which I do have one that I will setup to use after I get Panther on the ibook) or CD/DVD drive instead of just unplugging the USB/Firewire cable.

Firewire port not working Mac Mini (G4 1.25ghz)

Hi,
The firewire port isn't working on my mac mini, I've tried several devices, but none are connecting. I was wondering if anyone else was having this issue and possibly a solution. The only software installed on the computer since the firewire worked last was Apple updates, so maybe other mini's lost firewire somewhere along the way.
Thanks, and Thanks
W

This worked from Smokerz in the Power Mac G4 forum:
1. Shut-down your Mac, and unplug the power cord
2. Turn the power off on your external FireWire devices
3. Unplug the FireWire devices from the Mac
4. Wait for 5 min.
5. Plug the power cord to your Mac only
6. For PPC Macs: Restart the Mac while holding the Option-Apple-O-F, and keep holding until you get the ">" prompt, then release the keys
7. At the ">" prompt type:
reset-nvram and hit the Return key
set-defaults and hit the Return key
reset-all and hit the Return key
the last command will restart your mac
8. Shut down your Mac
9. Connect all your FireWire devices to the Mac and turn them on
10. Restart your Mac.
Works fine now thanks Smokerz!!!!!
also repaired permission and reset PRAM, nothing worked until I did this.
W

How How can i install Mountain Lion with faulty firewire ports??

Basically the firewire ports are fried on my MBP 3.1 (2007). My mac used to take hang on blue screen and take 10 mins to boot but I solved this problem by installing an ssd and deleting the following kext file...
/System/Library/Extensions/IOFireWireFamily.kext
My MBP now boots in under 20 seconds so if anybody is having the same issue then there is the resolotion..
Anyway these are the steps I have taken but failed to properly install ML.
Dowloaded Mountain Lion at least 3 times from the App store to make sure the download wasn't corrupted.
I even tried making a Lion Bootdisk so I can install Mountain Lion on a USB drive (Install ESD.dmg).
I have even tried installing Lion first thinking I would take it one version at a time but gets stuck on boot screen too.
I even changed my hard drive to a new blank SSD drive to see any difference.
Each time I install Mountain Lion or Lion, everything is good until the installer has to restart the laptop.
Laptop gets stuck at the grey boot screen with the Apple logo and the loading circle. Nothing ever happens after.
I always had to use/boot to the Snow Leopard CD so I can restart the laptop back to the Snow Leopard OS and then update to 10.6.8.
I am guessing it is the ML dmg reinstalling the above file ( /System/Library/Extensions/IOFireWireFamily.kext ) which is leading to the same issue because of the faulty firewire ports.
Is there anyway I can resolve this because its doing my head in and Snow Leopard is old and doesnt support newer software that I would like to use.
Any help would be kindly appreciated. Thanks

Kurt Lang wrote:
Just some thoughts.
I presume you already partitioned the new SSD drive as GUID?
Is there anything on the new drive at all yet, or anything that isn't already backed up? If not, you could try erasing the drive and then installing OS X from the bootable flash drive installer you made.
Ive tried that and yes it is GUID. Im going to get grey hairs soon and Im not even 30 lol .... yet
I am not going to buy a new logic board as its just not logical (sorry for the pun) I got the mac for free and I want to spend as little money as possible. Im running out of ideas though

No FireWire ports were found on MacBook Pro 15.4" running Mac OS 10.6.4

Hello all,
I recently bought a Mac Book Pro with Intel Core i7 and 2,66 GHz with a 4 GB RAM. The system is good, until I connected my external hard drive from Mac Way that connects to the laptop through a Firewire 800. The HD mounts well with a USB but not with a Firewire 800. I then went to the System Profiler and found this message in Hardware/Firewire - No FireWire ports were found.
I restarted the system and the system hangs or takes like three minutes to start, usually it starts in less than a minute. So I pressed on the power button for 5 seconds and again started the machine.
This time, surprise the HD mounts and in the Firewire in System Profiler, I have Firewire Bus, and when I click on it I have OEM ATA Device 00 and below
OEM ATA Device 00:
Manufacturer: DMI
Model: 0x0
GUID: 0x30E002E0000983
Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec
Connection Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec
Sub-units:
OEM ATA Device 00 Unit:
Unit Software Version: 0x10483
Unit Spec ID: 0x609E
Firmware Revision: 0x120
Product Revision Level:
Sub-units:
OEM ATA Device 00 SBP-LUN:
Capacity: 2 TB (2 000 398 934 016 bytes)
Removable Media: Yes
BSD Name: disk1
Partition Map Type: APM (Apple Partition Map)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
BW Time Machine:
Capacity: 2 TB (2 000 263 774 208 bytes)
Available: 779,33 GB (779 328 532 480 bytes)
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk1s10
Mount Point: /Volumes/BW Time Machine
I am able to use the Time Machine function.
Does any wise ones have suggestions out there? Thanks in advance for your kind help.

https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Websites+or+add-ons+incorrectly+report+incompatible+browser

Problem importing video from a DV camera into the new imovie 10.0? I have a Sony DCR TRV17 connected via Firewire port that worked in 9.0.9 but not under 10.0...

I have a Sony DCR TRV17 that I used to pass through VCR tape video via Firewire port to my Mac Pro under Imovie 9.0.9 without an issue. Now under Imovie 10.0 the video shows in the import window, I can start recording yet when I stop recording the recorded clips do not show up anywhere. The movie file I'm creating still indicates that I still need to import video. Anyone having similar problems?

Hey Dave,
I had this issue only once before but was lucky enought to find it was a specific event causing the import to freeze. It took me some time to isolate the problem though. I would recommend letting it sit there for some time before you try any troubleshooting. Larger libraries can take long periods of time to update.
This is a good thread for this issue. I would first try removing the iMovie.plist as elikness mentions.
1. Open Finder
2. Click on "Go" in the menu bar.
3. Click on Go To Folder on the dropdown menu.
4. Type "~/Library/Preferences/" in the text field and click Go.
5. Find the com.apple.iMovie(some number).plist file and move it to Trash.
Quit and relaunch iMovie to see if this took care of the issue before attempting the next step. If you're still having an issue then you can try what I needed to do which is isolating the problem event.
1. Open Finder.
2. Go to the Movies folder. You should see iMovie Events here.
If you have a larger event library I'd recommend renaming the iMovie Events folder to say, "iMovie Events COPY". Then create a new empty folder named “iMovie Events”. When you launch iMovie 9.0.9 all events will be missing at this point. Quit iMovie if it is open. Then you can either drag each event from iMovie Events COPY to iMovie Events or you can select and drag several at a time. Each time you drag an event folder back into the new iMovie Events folder launch iMovie 9.0.9 to see if you are having the same issue. Wash and repeat until either you have found the problem event or you have imported all events.
If you find the problem event you can reimport the clip from iMovie 9.0.9 by going to File > Import > Movies and navigating to that events iMovie Original Movies folder to find the clip.
Hope this helps!

Leopard USB and Firewire Ports

With leopard 10.5.1 loaded, I frequently get the grey screen of death (kernal panic) if I have a USB device plugged in (other than the mouse and keyboard). I have Pantones's Huey (Screen calibrator) attached to the USB on my keyboard. After reading many forum issues about USB devices jamming up Leopard, I decided to unplug the Huey sensor... no more problems! Also I have a 500 GB WD My Book Studio external HD plugged in the back Firewire 800 Port, it works well. Plug a Digital Camcorder in the front Firewire port.. not only does my camcorder not mount, but my machine spits out the external HD and gives me an error message about improper device removal. Please release 10.5.2 and include fixes for these external device issues!
PS on a Tiger OS I have had zero conflict with these periferals

When I first installed Leopard I got an "install media is corrupt" message about the Leopard Install disk right from the start. My first thought was the hard drive. So I purchased and overnighted an new 500 GB internal hard drive to back up the main hard drive. I erased and reformatted my main hard drive to install Leopard on. Same problem. I tried to install on the new 500 GB HD no luck. I also installed 2 GB dimms at the time. Turns out the dimms weren't agreeing with leopard. I returned the dimms for new only to have the same "corrupt media" message. Crucial explained that the memory should be largest dimms toward the processor (slots 1 & 2) and so on. I put all my memory back the way it was and everything seemed normal. I installed Leopard successfully. I started to get frequent Kernal Panics with everyday use (I do graphic design). I checked the forums and kept reading about problems associated with USB and this or that program. I unplugged my Huey (used for screen color correction) and Wha-lah. No more Kernal Panics.
But, now my digital camera and my Dazzle 6in1 media reader do not mount and/or hang up my machine with a kernal panics. When I tried to boot from and use Leopards disk utility I got the "media corrupt" message again.
I just hope 10.5.2 addresses the Leopard to hardware/USB/Firewire issues.

G5 losing all Firewire ports??

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for